The Ox-Demons and Snake-Spirits walked on woodenly as Red Guards smacked them in the buttocks with clubs, more symbolic than real. The clanging of gongs and the beating of drums rocked the earth, the shouted slogans made eardrums throb. Crowds of people pointed fingers and engaged in animated discussions. As they walked, Jintong felt someone step on his right foot, but he let that pass. When it happened a second time, he looked up and saw that Old Jin’s eyes were on him, though her head was bowed and strands of yellow hair covered her reddened ears. “Goddamned ‘Snow Prince,’” he heard her say. “With all the living girls waiting for you, you had to do it to a corpse!” Pretending he hadn’t heard her, he kept his eyes fixed on the heels of the person ahead of him. “Come see me when this is over,” he heard her say, throwing him into confusion. Her inappropriate teasing disgusted him.
Sima Ting, who was hobbling along, tripped over a brick and fell to the ground. The Red Guards kicked him, but got no reaction. So one of the smaller ones stepped on his back and jumped up and down. We all heard a dull sound like a balloon popping and saw rivulets of yellow liquid ooze from his mouth. Mother knelt down and turned his head to face her. “What’s the matter, uncle?” His eyes opened just enough to show white, and with one last look at Mother, those eyes closed for the last time. The Red Guards dragged his body over to the ditch by the road. The procession continued.
Jintong spotted a graceful figure in the crowd, and recognized her at once. She was wearing a black corduroy overcoat, a brown scarf, and a blindingly white mask over her mouth and nose, so that all that showed were her dark eyes and lashes. Sha Zaohua! He nearly shouted out her name. She’d gone away right after First Sister was shot; during the seven years that had passed since then, he’d heard a rumor about a female thief who’d stolen Princess Sihanouk’s earring, and he knew it had to be Zaohua. From her appearance alone, she looked to have grown into a mature young woman. Among the black-clad citizens in the marketplace, those wearing scarves and face masks were the first group of urban youngsters to be sent down to the countryside, and Zaohua had the most urban airs of any of them. She was standing in the doorway of the co-op restaurant looking in his direction. The sun’s rays fell on her face, and he saw that her eyes shone like a pair of glittering marbles. Her hands were in the pockets of her overcoat; she was wearing a pair of blue corduroy pants, cut in the fashionable style of the day, which Jintong caught a glimpse of when she moved over to the doorway of the general store. A shirtless old man came running out of the restaurant and straight into the procession of Ox-Demons and Snake-Spirits, with two men, who were not locals, in hot pursuit. The old man was so cold his skin was nearly black; his coarse white padded pants were hitched up all the way to his chest. As he weaved in and out among the people in dunce caps he crammed a flatcake into his mouth, nearly choking on it. The two men caught him, and he burst into tears, covering what was left of the food with snot and saliva. “I was hungry!” he sobbed. “Hungry!” The two men frowned in disgust at the sight of the wet, dirty remnant of the cake on the ground. One of them picked it up with two fingers and studied it disgustedly, but appeared to think it would be a pity to throw it away. “Don’t eat it, young fellow,” someone in the crowd urged him. “Take pity on him.” The man flung the cake down at the old man’s feet and snarled, “Go ahead, eat it, you old bastard, and I hope you choke on it!” He took out a handkerchief to wipe his fingers and walked off with his companion. The old man picked up the wet, sticky cake and carried it over to a nearby wall, where he rested on his haunches and slowly finished it off.
Sha Zaohua was moving in and out of the crowd. A uniformed petroleum worker in a dogskin cap made his way conspicuously toward them. His eyes were scarred, and a cigarette hung from his lips as he edged sideways through the crowd. Everyone eyed him with envy, and the greater his sense of self-importance, the brighter his eyes became. Jintong recognized him and was moved by the sight. Clothes make the man; saddles make the horse. A worker’s uniform and a dogskin cap had turned the village bully Fang Shixian into a new man. Few people in the crowd had ever seen one of those coarse blue uniforms, thick with padding, the cotton bulging between stitches, and obviously very warm. A youngster who looked like a dark monkey, in lined pants with a torn crotch from which cotton batting had migrated outside, like the tail of a sheep, and a padded jacket whose buttons had long since departed, leaving his belly exposed, followed on Fang Shixian’s heels, his hair looking like a rat’s nest. The people in the procession pushed and shoved to keep warm, when the youngster suddenly jumped into the air, swept the dogskin cap off of Fang’s head, clapped it onto his own, and scampered through the crowd like a cunning dog. Shouts erupted as the pushing and shoving increased. Fang Shixian reached up and felt his head; it took him a moment to realize what had happened, before he too began to shout and took off in pursuit of the youngster, who wasn’t running particularly fast, as if waiting for his pursuer. Fang followed him, cursing the whole time, his eyes fixed not on the road ahead, but on the sunlight glinting off the dog hairs of his cap; he crashed into people, who pushed back and spun him around. The unfolding drama captured the attention of everyone on the street, even the Red Guard little generals, who temporarily put aside class struggle, abandoning their Ox-Demons and Snake-Spirits in order to push through the crowd and enjoy the spectacle. The youngster ran up to the gate in front of the People’s Commune steel mill, where some girls were selling roasted peanuts, something that was not permitted; always on the alert, they were ready to flee at any time. Even though it was the middle of winter, steam rose from the surface of the nearby pond owing to all the red liquid waste the mill dumped into it. The youngster took off the cap and flung it into the pond. Momentarily stunned, the people quickly regained their voices, shouting their gloating approval of what he’d done. The cap floated in the water, refusing to sink below the surface, and all Fang Shixian could do was stand at the edge of the pond and curse, “You little bastard, just wait till I get my hands on you!” But by then the little bastard was long gone, and Fang just paced back and forth, gazing out at his cap and blinking furiously, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Say, young man, go home and get a bamboo pole. That’ll do it,” someone shouted. “Ten dogskin caps would have sunk by the time you got back,” someone else said. As if to prove him right, the cap had already begun to slip beneath the surface. “Strip and go fetch it,” someone said. “Whoever gets it owns it!” Suddenly panicked, Fang tore off his uniform, until he was standing there dressed only in a pair of shorts; he stepped tentatively into the water, which quickly submerged him up to the shoulders. Finally, however, he managed to retrieve his cap. But while he was in the water, and everyone’s attention was focused on him, Jintong saw the youngster appear out of nowhere, scoop up Fang’s uniform, and disappear down a lane, where a slender figure flicked out of sight. By the time Fang climbed out of the pond, cap in hand, all that greeted him at the water’s edge were a pair of shoes and socks with holes in them. “Where are my clothes?” he shouted, the shouts quickly turning to agonizing wails. By the time he realized that his clothes had been stolen and that the theft of his dogskin cap had been a ruse, that he’d been tricked by a pro, he shouted, “My god, my life is over!” Still holding his cap, he jumped into the pond. Shouts of “Save him!” erupted all around, but no one was willing to strip down and jump in after him. What with the freezing wind and the ice on the ground, even though the water itself was heated, going in would be easier than getting out. So while Fang Shixian thrashed around in the water, the people merely commented on the thief’s scheme: “Brilliant!” they said. “Just brilliant”